SW London Girls' Private & Grammar - applying for year 7 in 2023

[EmotiveBubblez]

i myself have been looking for this thread and have been unsuccessful. Saw a couple people mention it over the past day or so on the 2022 one.

so here we go, albeit a bit late.

has everyone visited all the schools on their lists?

how many schools are everyone applying to?

what schools are you applying to?

how is the preparation going?

i know some exams have taken place, how did they go?

wishing all the whirls good luck with preparation and exams, hope we all find the right schools for our daughters.

Yes- I think DD had similar. I'm getting flashbacks now! She came out saying that the English paper either didn't have a comprehension or an essay but I can't remember which. I thought she must have missed a whole chunk out but all her friends were having the same discussions with their parents! ( it may have been no comprehension as I remember feeling relieved as she could be spectacular awful at it!)

@QuiteAJourney - Ibstock is two stages again, but I think they are only inviting shortlisted candidates back for Stage 2. In DD's year, they all did Stage 1 and 2 which was pretty intense, especially as all the other exams were squished into January 😖

@boredboredbore and @NellyCortado , thanks both (I was aware that this year's Stage 2 was only depending on Stage 1... had not appreciated that all DC did both parts in previous years).
Oh, well. Let's see if there is more information forthcoming when IPS sends confirmation of slots.

Anyone knows how many places at IPS for year 7? Not sure of size of cohort or how many people come from junior vs intake?

@QuiteAJourney I’m pretty sure they have 80-90 external places, and most of their prep school from Y6 join as well to make the Y7 group. Some confusion when we applied last year whether the prep school kids have to sit same test or get an automatic place. I’m still not sure!

@travelturtle Many thanks, really useful to know.

DD sat Putney exam yesterday for occasional place in year 6. It was very heavy on the reasoning side and not much math or grammar. It’ll be interesting to see if the 11+ is also reasoning heavy or math and English too. Putney gives very little away…

Is anyone applying to Claremont Fan Court in Esher?

@Sugar118 . Our DD is not sitting PHS but some of our friends are. Will let you know if we have any insights

Yes we are applying to CFS. The email with exam timings went to junk mail!

Yes we are applying to Claremont too. It's a long session there!

Hope the Pitney test went well. Wishing your daughter all the best!

@secondaryquandries @Trickleg it's such a long time. What on earth will they be doing for all that time?

Went to one of our taster days today, very busy. Any idea how much schools over offer by? Appreciate this varies depending on schools.
Hope all exams have gone well so far!

@Firenze12 where did you go? How was it?

I don't know how much they over offer by. But I think it depends on who their competition is I suppose. KGS for example probably are in competition with places like Tiffin and imagine a lot of people would choose the free option if they get an offer from both!

@Firenze12 As mentioned above it all depends on the school, so very difficult to generalise: I assume that SPGS will not over offer by much (if at all) whilst others might be aware that they are less likely to be the top choice (in fact, some schools ask you which other schools you have applied for). Geography also matters. Kingston is an interesting one, as it is first choice for quite a few people but their geography means that they are in Grammar area so competing with the grammars. Others are also competing with grammars because of the area, but the grammars in question would have already offered by the time the private offers come through (I am thinking of the ones in the Surrey / Kent border, for instance).
Also, some schools don't over offer by much but have a long waiting list... whilst others seem to go down the route of over offering but they hardly ever go into the reserve list.
I think that over time the tendency seems to be to be a bit more constrained with the offers and rely more on reserve list. Some schools have got caught in the past over-offering and ended up either doing 'exploding offers' (that went down, as you can imagine, really badly) or having to increase cohort size (which is not optimal either).
Very interesting that you have already been to a taster day as most schools (as far as I am aware) have not yet offered and 'taster days' are usually come after offer and for offer holders - or was it of a different type?

A rule of thumb is 3 offers per place, if you look at the destination schools for Kensington Prep school in 2022 they received 21 offers from Putney High but only a handful will have been accepted.
If you talk to parents in year 7 at a leading school each child in the class will have had 4 other offers they turned down.

The unknown this year is Surbiton High because they used their usual offer ratio last year and had too many acceptances so this year they will greatly reduce their offers as the school site can't cope with another large intake .

How do your kids all get on with cpg/bond books? My son does pretty well on Atom sas scores but struggles to finish these written mock tests and also is overwhelmed just looking at the amount he is expected to read in eg. The bond comprehension tests.

An example would be a verbal reasoning paper with 60 questions and 20mins to complete. Are other kids motoring through these with full focus? My son could get very good marks in his own time but in the time given no chance.

Just a thought, have you considered requesting more exam taking time for your DS? I believe some schools permit this. It may be helpful to him.

Schools provide more time if there is a education assessment backing it up.
All kids would like more time / would do better with more time.

I think that, for some of the tests, very few kids finish them ... so the test is not only about knowledge but also coping under pressure...
We have told our daughter that she should not panic and just go as quickly at possible but not be over concerned if she does not finish as most children will not finish and the mark for passing will be reflect that.

We did have a tutor that suggested we see an educational psychologist about more time and we did have him sit with a qualified friend. She didn't think he would qualify. He is smart and can work at pace if pushed but struggles with continuous focus and speed. Are other kids speeding through these practices no issue?

Might be worth a try. My DD walked out of one entrance exam and the very first thing she said was she was surprised by how many DC's had extended examination times. Many were DC's she knew. Good luck.

Do you mean an open day rather than a taster day? I'm always surprised by how rammed open days are (surely all these people - times X many open days - can't all be applying to this school?) Then I remind myself that I'll have probably seen a dozen schools by the time this is all over with, and we're only applying to four...

Re over-offers, as @QuiteAJourney says, it's totally school dependent. If you look at the offers from top London preps, almost everyone takes their SPGS place (and so a fair assumption is that SPGS hardly need to over-offer at all) whereas even G&L often the acceptance rate is only 50%. So I don't think there's a hard-and-fast rule - it totally depends on the school.

At my DD's prep, some girls will get an offer from all four or five schools they apply to, others might only get one offer, so the exit results from prep schools aren't always clear cut either!

Are the 11+ exams he's taken mostly written or online? If the latter, then I wouldn't worry at all, if his Atom scores are good. Some of the girls' indie schools now only have an online test, so might be worth just assessing how much written work he actually has to do versus online?